


still rockin' your hoodie, baby, even though it hurts

by carry_on_my_gayward_son



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Any way the wind blows, Baz Pitch - Freeform, Break Up AU, Fiona Pitch - Freeform, Hoodie, M/M, Non magic AU, Normal AU, Pastel/Punk AU, Post-Break Up, Simon Snow - Freeform, SnowBaz, carry on, rainbow rowell, wayward son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23375179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carry_on_my_gayward_son/pseuds/carry_on_my_gayward_son
Summary: Baz can’t cope with his and Simon’s break-up. He’s been hiding in his room and crying himself to sleep every day. One day, Penny drops off a box of Baz’s stuff, except it isn’t his. It’s Simon’s. He’s going through this box when he finds one of Simon’s old hoodies. He switches his leather jacket and his black tops out for this worn, pink sweater that still smells like smoke and baking. As Baz is brooding in this hoodie, and Simon continues with his schoolwork, Penny and Fiona plan to reunite the pair. Idea from Hey Violet’s song ‘Hoodie’. Originally written for the 2018 Carry On Big Bang.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 3
Kudos: 79





	still rockin' your hoodie, baby, even though it hurts

**Author's Note:**

> This has been up on my tumblr (https://alwayscarryonjily.tumblr.com/) for a while now but i figured I'll post it here too so it's available to a wider audience :)

I’m still lying in my bed when Fiona carries a cardboard box into my room around 3:00pm. She drops the box next to my feet and it turns on its side, tipping its contents over the duvet. I twist my neck around so that I can look at the various objects just as she rips open the curtains. The late autumn sun streams through the window, blinding my eyes that haven’t seen light in perhaps three days? I think it’s Tuesday, but it could easily be Wednesday or Thursday.

“Basil, it’s time to get up and stop being pathetic. When I let you move in, I did not sign up for a moping emo kid,” Fiona says. “This is the last box of crap your friend Bunce dropped off yesterday. I figured I’d give you a while before dumping it on you.”

I push myself up and wipe the dried tears from the corners of my eyes. “Bunce? Did she say anything about Simon?”

My breath catches in my throat until I meet her eyes. She shakes her head and I let the air escape from my lungs.

“I’m sorry, kid.” She turns towards the door but pauses. “It’s take-out night. If you don’t come out for food, I’m dragging your ass back to your father’s house.”

I twist in my duvet after the door closes and watch as a book falls from the bed onto the floor. It looks like a psychology textbook, but I don’t take psychology. Simon does. I grab the book that’s lying next to my foot. It’s a biology textbook. Yet another course I don’t take. I lift the box and the array of colourful clothing that greets me tells me that this isn’t my box. Bunce delivered Simon’s last box, not mine. I want to believe she did it on purpose, trying to get me to speak to Simon and fix things, but she’s not that kind of person. I know this was a mistake. I reach for a pink sleeve and pull it towards me. T-shirts, socks and a scarf are pulled out of the box with the hoodie and I pick them off, placing them carefully back in the box. I lift the hoodie up by its shoulders and stare at it. It’s the one I bought Simon for his birthday last year. The pink one with the white blossoms on the sleeves and the circle of fairies on the back. I drop my head into my knees and pull the material up to my face. Tears fall from my eyes and catch on the pink fabric. It still smells like smoke and baking; like Simon. I sit there for another hour, letting Simon’s hoodie muffle my sobs. Fiona knocks on my door once, but she walks away when I don’t answer, although I know she’ll be back if I don’t make an appearance before dinner arrives.

I let myself take five more minutes to get myself together before I pull myself out of bed. My legs struggle to hold my weight steadily, but I make my way to my dresser. I pull out a pair of sweatpants, some new underwear (cause lord knows I need it) and a black tank top. My bladder is near bursting and I reek of sweat after not showering for days. I know Fiona wouldn’t appreciate having a sweaty 19-year-old sitting in her kitchen any more than she must like having a mopey emo kid sulking in her flat, so I spend the next half hour in the bathroom. When I return to my room to throw my clothes in the laundry basket my eye catches on Simon’s hoodie. I reach to pick it up and press it to my face, inhaling Simon’s scent. My nose rubs against an old cigarette burn under the collar and the teeth of the zipper scratch my cheek.

“Basil, if you want anything in particular you better get out here soon!” Fiona yells.

I pull my face away from the hoodie and look towards the door, even though I know it’s closed and that Fiona will be looking through a pile of take-out menus. I glance back at the lump of pink in my hands before pulling it on, up and over my arms.

-

When I enter the living room of Fiona’s small London flat I instantly spot her sitting cross-legged on the breakfast bar. She has her nose stuck in a menu for one of the Indian restaurants down the street. Her feet are covered in various take-out menus from restaurants in the flat’s general area. I saunter over to her and pick up one of the Chinese restaurant menus.

“Can I have honey roast chicken, pork dumplings and chicken-corn soup if I go pick everything up?” I ask before dropping the menu back on her feet and walking over to one of the two sofas.

“If you help with the bill,” she replies, looking up with a smirk as I drop onto the couch.

I narrow my eyes and stick my tongue out. She winks before dropping off the edge of the counter and reaching for the phone. She dials and orders from the local Pizza Hut. I roll my eyes at her Hawaiian pizza and large coke. She hangs up and turns to me with her hands on her hips, raising an eyebrow.

“You have such cultured taste.”

Fiona glares at my words and picks up a menu. I can’t read what restaurant it’s for, but I’m willing to bet it isn’t McDonald’s. She picks up the phone again and dials.

“Hi, can I place an order of mango chicken and tikka masala for Fiona. Yeah, thanks.” She glares at me as she puts the phone down. “Have fun picking up food from three restaurants, _Fiona_.”

I sneer at her back as she stalks out of the room, chuckling to herself. I spot my cell phone on the coffee table in front of me, the shattered screen still present. I really should have asked Fiona to get it fixed for me. I reach over and pick it up, pressing the on/off button as I lift it towards my face. The screen lights up and through the shattered glass I can see the lock screen; a selfie of Simon and I from our one-year anniversary dinner three months ago. Simon’s cuddled into my side on the floor of our old apartment. He’s holding the phone while reaching up to kiss my neck and I’m smiling at the phone in his hand. He has sauce all over one side of his face and a few pieces of rice stuck to the corner of his mouth. I know there are stains on the shirt he wore that night from all the food he dropped down his front and Penny wouldn’t speak to us the next day because we reeked of garlic. But we were happy that night. We were happy together.

“I haven’t heard you leave yet, and it’s a half hour walk down the street!” Fiona yells from her room.

I sit up, wiping a tear from my cheek and rub a pink sleeve over my eyes. I drop the phone on the couch as I stand and take a shaky breath.

“You left yet?” She yells again.

“Jeez, you’re impatient! I’m leaving now!” I yell back.

I reach around my doorframe on my way to the front door to grab a pair of shoes and shove my feet into them while I grab my coat and keys. I pocket the cash Fiona had in her coat pocket and check I have some cash in my own. I yell a goodbye to Fiona before the door closes behind me when I step out into the hallway.

-

I’m struggling down the street with Fiona’s two bags of food and my own when I see the head of bronze curls ahead of me. I stumble and almost drop everything over the pavement. Someone knocks into my shoulder as I readjust the bags in my hands. My eyes drift upwards and look for the mop of brown hair down the street. I spot the person walking towards me, bobbing through the crowd of people. I consider my options; continue walking towards them or cross the street and run like a wimp on the grounds that the person is possibly Simon. I take one step in front of me and bolt across the street, weaving through the backed-up traffic.

I barely stop running from that spot on the street to Fiona’s apartment door. I take a few minutes in the hallway to catch my breath before I open the door. Fiona’s sitting on the couch watching some American reality show and eating popcorn.

“I wasn’t even gone an hour and you couldn’t wait?” I roll my eyes as I drop the food on the table by the door and shrug off my coat.

“Hey! I’m old. I need my sustenance. I can’t be waiting around for melancholic teenagers to get home to give me food.”

I carry the bags of food over to the coffee table and dump them in front of her. She shoots me a smug grin as she reaches for her pizza box and I aim my middle finger at her, mimicking her grin. The smell of the garlic in my dumplings wafts towards me as I rip open the paper bag. The sounds from Fiona’s shitty reality show continue as we unpack our food.

“Are we having a movie night or are you going to subject me to this colonial rubbish?” I ask from the kitchen while grabbing some cutlery for us.

“If we can watch a Disney movie I’ll turn this off and save your poor brain cells from further destruction.”

I throw a plastic fork and spoon at her and reach for her laptop to open her movie files.

“Well the only ones you have downloaded are Frozen and Tangled, so your pick I guess,” I say through a spoonful of soup.

She turns to me with an evil grin on her face. I watch as she takes a sip from her coke before she says, “Frozen.”

“Why did I know you’d say that?” I groan, leaning away from the dumpling on the table that I was about to eat.

-

I glance over at Fiona as the end credits start to roll. She’s snoring into her half empty pizza box and is hugging her coke (which has spilled all over the couch) to her chest. I reach across to her sofa and grab the remote from the arm of the couch, clicking the television into silence before closing the lid of her laptop too. I pull the blanket from the back of the chair I’d been sitting in and drape it over her. She shifts as the woollen weight settles over her, but her eyes remain closed. I sneak around the apartment, putting whatever food we didn’t eat in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch – or breakfast in Fiona’s case. I check to make sure she isn’t being smothered by the pizza she’s using as a pillow before escaping to my room. I change into some sweatpants, keeping Simon’s hoodie on, and pull out my laptop before climbing into bed. When I open it and the screen lights up the first thing I see is the notification from Facebook in the bottom corner of the screen informing me that I have a message from Penelope Bunce. I click the notification, letting it take me to Facebook. Messenger opens, and Bunce’s chat pops up.

_Hey, how are you doing? Do you want me to send you the economics notes you’ve missed?_

I consider not gracing her messages with a reply, but the message was sent two days ago, and despite her loyalty to Simon, I know she wouldn’t want to think that I’m miserable. So, I type a quick reply and close the tab, instead opening my emails. A collection of emails from my lecturers appears on the screen, all of them containing links to Google Docs that my classmates have filled with homework and class discussions, none of which I have shared my usually obnoxious opinion in. I close the tab and shut the screen, placing my laptop on the bedside table before turning off the lamp beside me and burying down into my blankets.

I’m half asleep when my laptop makes a noise, letting me know that I have a new notification. I reach for my laptop and open the lid. I click on the notification and my emails open.

_Hey Baz, are you okay? I just want you to know that I’m sorry._

I want to type a reply, but my vision becomes blurred by tears and I have to delete the email from Simon. I close my laptop for the second time in the past half hour and slide it across the floor, so it rests as far from my bed as it can get. I curl into a ball, pressing my face into my pillow and fall asleep to the sounds of my own sobs.

-

When I emerge from my room around twelve the next day, Fiona is eating my leftovers. She’s trying to be sneaky about it by hiding behind the fridge door, but I can see her perfectly well from the doorway to the kitchen. I clear my throat and place a hand on my hip. She jerks back from the fridge, sending a scattering of rice across the floor. Her eyes narrow when she sees me, and she quickly swallows her mouthful.

“That’s your fault,” she says, pointing at the rice on the floor. “You can clean it up.”

She laughs and goes back to eating my food when I flash my middle finger at her. I grab the half broom and shovel from below the sink and start collecting the rice from the floor.

I feel Fiona’s eyes on me before she says, “Didn’t you wear that hoodie yesterday? I didn’t know you knew what colours were.”

“Of course, I know what colours are. I did take art in high school, you know,” I reply, not looking at her.

I hear a rustle of clothes and the sound of a container being placed on a shelf before the fridge door closes. I turn and see Fiona leaning against the wall. She has an eyebrow raised as if to say, _are you gonna cut the shit or am I going to have to rip it out of you?_ I glare at her but feel myself wanting to tell her where it came from and why I’m wearing it, but I can see the pitying look in her eyes and I don’t want that sympathy to transfer to her face.

“It’s just something I found in my wardrobe.” The lie rolls right off my tongue and leaves a sour taste in my mouth as well as a prickling behind my eyes.

She makes an _mhmm_ noise before opening the fridge again and pulling out my dumplings.

“Hurry up so that I don’t have to eat all your food.”

I grin at her, sweep up the last of the rice and tip the floor scrapings in the shovel into the bin. Fiona takes the lead walking into the lounge and I follow, dropping into the same seat I sat in last night. Fiona, too, sits in the same place she did last night. She seems to have cleaned up a bit because her pizza box pillow is gone and the couch she spilled coke on no longer has a dark brown stain. Although it wouldn’t have mattered whether she’d done something to fix the stain when you consider the dozens of other stains on the furniture around the apartment. She reaches over and offers me the container of dumplings. I take a few and let her claim the rest for herself.

“Does your cloak of darkness fit over that hoodie? It looks a bit big,” Fiona says through a mouthful of dumpling.

I furrow my eyebrows and cock my head slightly to the side, trying to express my confusion without speaking with my food-filled mouth. She rolls her eyes at the manners I display courtesy of my upbringing but elaborates on her question.

“Does your leather jacket fit over the hoodie? Or are you turning into a pastel-loving cinnamon roll? Because if so, I want first dibs on the black clothes you’re abandoning.”

“No, I’m not turning into a cinnamon roll. And how do you even know what a cinnamon roll is?” I shove another dumpling in my mouth while she answers.

“I spend more time on the internet than you do, or did you forget that some of us adults can actually use technology, unlike that father of yours.” She places her last bite of dumpling in her mouth and turns around to check the clock on the wall. “I have to go. I’m meeting someone. There’s still food in the fridge if I’m not back later. What am I saying? You’re an adult. Take care of yourself. That isn’t my responsibility anymore.”

“What time will you be back?” I ask, reaching out to take the empty container from her.

She stands as she shrugs and says, “Dunno. If I’m not back by four call me using the house phone, but I probably won’t be longer than an hour. Oh, did you want me to get your phone screen fixed while I’m out?”

I look at the couch cushions that I know my phone is hidden between and shrug. “Couldn’t hurt I guess.”

She reaches between the cushions and pulls it out. How she knew where it was is beyond me, although she was sleeping there so it’s highly likely that she felt it digging into her stomach while she was snoring into her pizza pillow.

“Wow, this screen really is a mess. How did you manage to shatter it this much?”

I shrug again, opting to irritate her rather than tell her that I threw it at a wall during the fight with Simon. She glares at me but comes over to kiss the top of my head before leaving me alone in the apartment. I look around the room and decide that I should probably start catching up on all the lectures I’ve missed, so I collect my laptop and a blanket from my room and return to the couch in the hopes of having a study afternoon.

-

My head jerks forward, throwing me out of my dream and I blink slowly. My computer is still in front of me, open on an economics Google Doc. I meant to read through the notes my classmates had left, but I don’t remember any of what’s in front of me, so I assume that I fell asleep soon after turning on my laptop. My earplugs are miraculously still in my ears and the Fall Out Boy album I’d been listening to is still playing. I pause the song currently playing and pull the earplugs out of my ears. As soon as they leave my ears, I hear the ringing of the phone. I jump up, almost dropping my laptop and race over to the phone. I turn back to the clock by the door as I take the phone off the hook on the wall and press it to my ear. The clock reads three seventeen, so I didn’t sleep for very long and there’s no sign that Fiona’s returned but I don’t have to worry about that for another hour or so.

“Hello?” A voice asks.

I forgot that the phone was pressed to my ear for a reason.

“Hey. Hi. This is Baz.”

“Baz, hey. It’s Penny. I’ve been calling for the past hour,” the voice says.

“Hey. How are you? Is everything alright?” I can’t help asking; Bunce never calls me. She rarely even texts me. She’s more of an email person, and even then, she doesn’t tend to use that either.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wanted to check you’d got the box of stuff I dropped off? You didn’t say anything about it in your Messenger reply.”

I think about the box of Simon’s things sitting in my room and the hoodie that I’m currently wearing. “Actually, Bunce, you gave me the wrong box. You gave me Simon’s stuff.”

There’s a pause on the other end and for a second, I think I hear voices, but then Bunce says, “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Um,” There’s another pause. “Well, do you want to maybe meet me somewhere, so I can switch the boxes?”

I think about how switching the boxes means I’ll have to give Simon’s hoodie back, an then I think about how selfish that is. The hoodie belongs to Simon. He loved it. I can’t take that from him.

“Yeah. I can meet you later today if that’s fine?” I ask, knowing I won’t be going anywhere else for the rest of the day.

“Actually, I have a meeting with one of my lecturers and I’m meeting, uh, I’m meeting Simon and Agatha for dinner with Micah,” She says, and I have to force myself to take a shaky breath.

Of course, Simon is going out and enjoying himself. He’s probably glad to be rid of me; the pathetic, boring boyfriend that always kept him from doing the things he wanted to do.

“Okay, well I should probably go to work tomorrow, but I can meet you afterwards? If you don’t have any afternoon lectures, that is?”

There’s a pause on the other end and I think I hear voices again before Bunce speaks. “Yeah that should be fine. Do you want to meet at the coffee shop by your work?”

I agree to meet her there at four and say goodbye before hanging up. I put the phone back on the hook and take a few steps into the living room until the phone rings again. I sigh and reach around to pick it up, not bothering to greet the caller; it’s probably Bunce calling again to double check our plans are good. But the voice on the other end doesn’t belong to Penelope Bunce.

“Hello?” A deeper, male voice says.

My breath catches in my throat and my stomach drops.

“Is anyone there?” Simon pauses. “Baz? Are you there?”

My throat starts to burn with the lack of oxygen in my lungs and I force myself to take a shallow breath. Simon sighs on the other end.

“Baz, I just wanted to find out if a box of my things ended up with yours. I’m missing a few textbooks that I need for exams… Well, text Penny if you find them. Bye. I miss you.”

The silence that follows on the other end tells me he hung up. I place the phone back on the hook for the second time in the past few minutes and continue my earlier path into the lounge. I drop back into the sofa and move my laptop on the coffee table; I can’t handle the thought of studying right now. I curl into a ball and press my shoulder against the back of the chair. I hold in the tears, but I can’t keep the uneven breaths from racking my chest. I close my eyes and let myself fall into a restless sleep.

-

A hand on my shoulder brings me out of unconsciousness. I open my eyes and see the apartment lit up by the lamps around the room. The kitchen light is on and through the window I can see that it’s dark outside. I look up into Fiona’s grey eyes and see the concern in her eyes vanish behind a mask of impatience. She leans away from me and places her hands on her hips.

“Take out was last night, so tonight’s cooking night and I don’t want to burn anything, so I need a supervisor,” she says simply before vanishing into the kitchen.

I look at the clock and see that I slept for roughly five hours. Well, I won’t be sleeping well later. I peel myself out of the couch and join my aunt in the kitchen.

“Is it curry night then?” I ask when I see the various assortment of spices littering the bench.

“ _Mhmm_ ,” Fiona replies absentmindedly as she examines the types of rice in the cupboard.

“We only have brown rice and jasmine rice, and you like being healthy when we cook. Get out the brown rice,” I say while rolling my eyes.

She flashes her middle finger at me over her shoulder and pulls out the bag of brown rice. She grabs a pot from one of the cupboards and fills it with water. I lean across the breakfast bar and turn the radio on. When I look around at Fiona she’d dancing to the WHAM! song that’s currently playing. We spend the night dancing around the kitchen to the radio while we cook.

I wake up the next morning in my room to my alarm going off for work. The alarm clock reads seven am. I sit up, pulling the duvet with me, and turn the alarm off before it wakes Fiona up from down the hall. I change into a pair of black jeans and an MCR shirt before pulling Simon’s hoodie over my head. I shove my arms into my rain jacket at the front door and carry the box of Simon’s things down the hall and out onto the street. I place it carefully in the back room when I get to work and clock in. My co-worker for the day is a girl called Trixie. I let her take counter duty and instead start restocking the shelves in the science fiction/fantasy section. We take our lunch break behind the counter because our manager, an older woman named Miss Possibelf, went out for lunch with her boyfriend and needed us to mind the store while we eat. Trixie’s girlfriend, Keris, visits after our break and I tell Trixie that I’ll close the store for her, so she can get off early. I sit behind the counter, opening and closing the tray on the cash register while staring religiously at the clock on the computer screen.

When the time finally reads three thirty I sit up and start packing up the shop for the day. The sign reads ‘Closed’ and the lights are all off when I leave ten minutes later. I carry Simon’s box to the café down the street and order a pumpkin mocha breve before choosing a corner table. I consider taking Simon’s hoodie off and putting it in the box, but it’s only Penny that’s meeting me and it’s not like she’d judge me. I pull my phone out an start writing a text to Penelope, but the door opening makes me look up.

I catch a glimpse of bronze curls before my eyes meet blue ones. A wave of emotion sweeps over me and I find myself struggling to my feet.

“Baz,” Simon says at the same time I say, “Simon.”

I watch as his eyes drift down and focus on me wearing his hoodie. I feel my cheeks heat as I rush to take it off.

“Baz- uh, you don’t- don’t worry about it,” he says, and I stop wrestling with the hoodie.

“Sorry. I assume you want your stuff back?” I notice he carries a cardboard box under his arm, presumably containing my own lost things.

He nods.

We stand there for a few seconds just taking each other in, then we both rush to speak.

“Do you want to-”

“I assume you want-”

“Sorry,” we mutter at the same time.

I sit back down awkwardly and pick up my drink to occupy my hands. Simon looks at the counter for a second and turns back to me.

“I’m just gonna go get a, uh, drink,” he says. “I’ll just leave this here.”

He puts his box on one of the chairs opposite me and walks towards the counter. He comes back a couple of minutes later with his own pumpkin mocha breve. He sits down in the other chair on the other side of the table and looks up at me with those blue eyes. _Fuck_.

I clear my throat and nod towards the cardboard box on the floor next to me. “I guess you know Bunce accidentally gave us the wrong boxes.”

Simon opens his mouth and closes it again. I cock my head to the side and furrow my eyebrows.

“What?” I ask.

“Penny did that on purpose. I thought you knew.”

I narrow my eyes and start planning the email I’m going to send her later. Simon grimaces across the table and lifts his hand slightly, as if he was going to reach for my own, but he drops it again.

“That’s your plotting face. Forget about Pen. She just wanted us to talk and sort this out,” he says, still grimacing, worried eyes trained on my face.

I catch myself clenching my hands around my cup and force myself to loosen my grip. “What is there to talk about? We broke up.”

Simon winces and recoils slightly in his chair at the words. My hand twitches, wanting to reach out and grasp his own, to rub circles on the back of his hand and comfort him. I remove my hands from my cup and lace them together in my lap to resist the urge.

“I’m sorry, Baz. I regret everything that happened that night. I’m so, so sorry.”

I watch as his eyes glaze over and he looks down at the table to avoid eye contact with me. This time I can’t help it when my hands untangle, and one reaches across the table to grab Simon’s hand. I lift our interlocked hands to my mouth and kiss his knuckles. His head tilts up and our eyes meet while I continue pressing my lips to his hand. I watch as he smiles at me and he pulls our hands away from my mouth, lifting them towards his own and kissing my knuckles.

In this moment, I know everything is going to be fine between us.


End file.
